The present disclosure relates to a rail vehicle having carriage workhead assemblies that are rotatable and transversely displaceable.
Generally, a railroad includes at least one pair of elongated, substantially parallel rails coupled to a plurality of laterally extending ties, which are disposed on a ballast bed. The rails are coupled to the ties by tie plates and spikes and/or spring clip fasteners, which is an example of a class of fasteners that may be referred to as anchors. The ballast is generally hard particulate material such as, but not limited to, gravel. The ballast filled space between ties is referred to as a crib. Ties may be crooked or skewed and not extend generally laterally, e.g. perpendicular to, the rails.
During installation and maintenance, various operations may be performed. For example, ballast may need to be tamped, or compressed, to ensure that the ties, and therefore the rails do not shift and are positioned correctly; anchors may need to be tightened; or ties may need to be replaced. Track maintenance activities generally require a vehicle that travels on the track and carries workheads that perform the maintenance activities.
When performing maintenance operations on a track, such as a tamping operation, the spacing of the rails of the track may vary. This variance may be because the track is out of alignment and needing maintenance operations. It may also be because a location such a switch has been reached that has different rail spacing than at another point in the track. It would be desirable to have a workhead assembly that is transversely displaceable that can accommodate these variations in spacing of the rails. It would also be desirable to have a workhead assembly that can rotate to provide greater flexibility in positioning tools of the workheads and more easily accommodate variation such as curves in the track.